Oh no, please don’t tell me you reinstated the moment where Anakin stares lustfully at Padme and she tells him that he’s making her feel uncomfortable, to which he smiles(!) like an absolute creep. That’s easily one of my least favorite moments in the entire film. My reaction every time I see it is “get the hell out of there Padme”. Especially in the #MeToo era, this moment seems in poor taste, and I felt the way you had handled it previously was completely seamless.

I just saw V6, and he did add it back in.

Not entirely sure why it was, either. That moment is not only creepy but it also makes me cringe.

I expected a little backlash for that one, but I feel like
A) It doesn’t end abruptly as it did in prior versions
B) It mediates the smoothed over love story and the very next scene where the two are a little cold toward each other
C) It includes a movie trope that goes way back about the woman initially resisting the man’s advances (the #MeToo thing) which is consistent with the love story’s ‘old cinema’ style (and begins to show us that she is denying to herself that she may have feelings for him, as continued in the family dinner scene)
And mutters D) The Phantom Editor saw fit to leave it in for his cut.

All around I felt like it was the right thing to do, though I anticipated some blowback. I’m sorry, everyone.

JEDIT: I actually shortened it slightly, mimicking Attack of the Phantom. I would suggest watching this cut and see how that moment strikes you in context of the whole.

I think some people are going to make a hybrid version of V5 and V6, because a lot of people agree with you on those 2 points, and in that the droid factory sequence should be kept out of the movie. So maybe look out for that! 😉

I think some people are going to make a hybrid version of V5 and V6, because a lot of people agree with you on those 2 points, and in that the droid factory sequence should be kept out of the movie. So maybe look out for that! 😉

I might make my own edit to accomplish those changes and a few others. As for the droid factory scene, it was a post-production replacement of an unreleased deleted scene in which Jango Fett captures Anakin and Padmé. Although it is imperfect, the capture of Anakin and Padmé is necessary to the plot. Otherwise, they willingly walk to their doom.

Yeah, I’m gonna pass on V6. :’( Too much material that’s irredeemable to me is back in now.

I still think V5 is the best Episode II can possibly ever be for me. I might download V6 just to patch the technical issues fixed for it back into V5, but I just can’t bring myself to give it a chance with the droid factory, diner, and “don’t look at me like that” even if the other improvements are worthwhile.

For what it’s worth, I made a custom “v5.5” edition of Cloak of Deception that removes JarJar slurping apples and a couple of other bits not to my taste, and I will probably do the same with The Approaching Storm. Right now my plan is just to remove the creepy Anakin moment and a few bits of JarJar that snuck back in, but I could maybe make a version without Dex and the Droid Factory if people really want it. Personally, I think Hal’s new edits of these scenes work quite well in context.

I expected a little backlash for that one, but I feel like
A) It doesn’t end abruptly as it did in prior versions
B) It mediates the smoothed over love story and the very next scene where the two are a little cold toward each other
C) It includes a movie trope that goes way back about the woman initially resisting the man’s advances (the #MeToo thing) which is consistent with the love story’s ‘old cinema’ style (and begins to show us that she is denying to herself that she may have feelings for him, as continued in the family dinner scene)
And mutters D) The Phantom Editor saw fit to leave it in for his cut.

All around I felt like it was the right thing to do, though I anticipated some blowback. I’m sorry, everyone.

JEDIT: I actually shortened it slightly, mimicking Attack of the Phantom. I would suggest watching this cut and see how that moment strikes you in context of the whole.

Thanks for the thoughtful explanation Hal. I understand your reasoning, although I don’t agree with it. I felt that ‘old cinema’ trope was tired and outdated (not to mention harmful) in 2002, let alone 2019. Regardless of the real-world optics of the scene though, I think the bigger problem is that it just doesn’t work in the context of the movie. After all, The Empire Strikes Back (my favorite Star Wars movie) employs the same trope, but far fewer people take issue with it because of the direction and performances. Even when Han and Leia are at each others throats, we can tell they have feelings for one another. Christensen doesn’t play the scene with old hollywood charm, he plays it as genuinely creepy. Portman seems firmly repulsed; there isn’t really a second layer to her performance that suggests her defenses might be coming down.

I completely understand. There are myriad possible combinations of all these things. I started this project with boldness, and have slowly slinked back closer to the original.
And hey, when I knew I was going to do a V6, I wasn’t even planning to revisit Episode 2 at all! There’s nothing wrong with V5, and I begrudge no one who prefers to remain with it.
Looking forward to finishing up Episode 3 as well, then signing an affidavit restricting my OCD self from returning to those three movies!

Myspeen is the best option. I can’t really offer them directly because I don’t have endless cloud storage, and all 9 eventual edits will claim close to 400GB.
If anyone wishes to mirror older versions I’m more than okay with that; I just can’t do it myself.

So I created a survey to get a sense of what people would like to see in a hypothetical V5/V6 hybrid version of The Approaching Storm. I intend no disrespect to Hal here, who I think has done a tremendous job of crafting his preferred version of the film and listening thoughtfully to community feedback. Hal, if you’d like me to take this to a separate thread I can do so.

One of the reasons why I love movies so much is how they can be understood and interpreted in many ways. I agree with Hal 9000’s inclusion of the creepy staring from Anakin. It fits because love in the prequel trilogy isn’t really love. The original trilogy had real love in it between the characters, even Darth Vader somewhat redeems himself over familial love.

In these prequels, I think Anakin is obsessed with Padme rather than in love with her. It fits his character’s downfall to the dark side and how he tries so hard to justify what he does (he wants the power to “protect” her or something to that degree).

I must say I’m very glad with V6. I remember when I first saw Hal’s edit of EpII, my only issues where the weird “Kamino system” alien voice, the lack of the droid factory scene to address the continuity problem on Geonosis (and to put back some action at a necessary moment), and a few other stuff here and there (most of the little stuff had already been fixed with V5 compared to V4 which was the first version I saw).

I don’t mind Dax scene at all (especially here without the bad introduction), as I remember one of my first posts on this topic was probably about putting it back to address the “Kamino system” issue. As for the Jar Jar stuff, when Dom talked about his own edit he mentioned he would be putting this kind of stuff back, so rewatching those two short scenes I’m like “well, why cutting that in the first place anyway since there is nothing bad ?” (good idea to leave the senate emergency power scene as it was in v5 though). It’s also probably unconscious for most of us, with what we recently learned with Ahmed Best difficult time with the Jar Jar bashing.

Other little stuff put back are incidental so small that I’m fine with it (I haven’t got time to watch it entirely, just the main changes over V5, but given the changelist I’m sure it’s cool). It gives EpII back most of its original content without the very bad stuff, which is something I was looking for since I’m more and more tolerant with the PT and its defaults as time passes. V6 is a very conservative edit, removing the worst and keeping what’s necessary to not feel in front of a fanedit (yeah, Anakin’s creepy look is lame but the cut in V5 wasn’t that seamless). I also believe you’re the first faneditor to finally remove this awkward shot of Anakin watching his foot to reveal… Padmé lying in the sand ! Where is Marcia Lucas when we need her ! 😉

The only thing I would have put back is the title “Darth Tyranus” and maybe Octoroxx idea of reusing EpIII footage. Aside from that, I believe V6 is as close as possible to the perfect EpII cut according to my taste. I would however be interested to see a mock up of a trimmed confession scene, just to check if it could improved something.

As I am thinking about the alternate audio track I made for V5, I’ve just found the following that I could duplicate for V6 (most of my V5 changes are no longer relevant for V6):

Replace Padmé’s “Ani” with “Anakin” taken from the deleted scene (All channels)

“I have to say that I felt George’s group of six films had more innovative visual imagination, and this film was more of a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before, and it took a few baby steps forward with new characters.” - James Cameron about Episode VII.

MalàStrana said:
As for the Jar Jar stuff, when Dom talked about his own edit he mentioned he would be putting this kind of stuff back, so rewatching those two short scenes I’m like “well, why cutting that in the first place anyway since there is nothing bad ?” (good idea to leave the senate emergency power scene as it was in v5 though). It’s also probably unconscious for most of us, with what we recently learned with Ahmed Best difficult time with the Jar Jar bashing.

Thanks for bringing this up. I was actually really affected by Best talking about his mental health struggles brought about by toxic fan reactions to his character. Obviously he put his all into executing Lucas’s vision for the character, which is what any good actor would do. It made me rethink the way the fan edit community has discussed the character in the past.

I don’t want it to be perceived that I’m advocating removing the character or Best’s performance. My goal in supporting the removal of those two small moments is the same as the Phantom Editor’s, who originally removed those moments in his edit of the film. I believe that by removing JarJar stumbling over his words (and especially Padme seemingly cutting him off because she can’t even tolerate his presence for more than a few seconds) the audience can infer that the character has matured between films and buy the idea that Padme would appoint him to take over her duties while she’s away. The idea is to dignify the character, not to deingrate him.